Passing By
by SkyGem
Summary: Rokudo Mukuro passes a strange kid on his way to school every day. They never talk after their first meeting, but over the years, they develop a strange kind of almost-friendship through scribbled messages on post-it notes. Three-shot. Drabbles.
1. First Encounter

Summary: Rokudo Mukuro passes a strange kid on his way to school every day. They never talk, but over the years, they develop a strange kind of almost-friendship through scribbled messages on post-it notes. Three-shot. Drabbles.

* * *

He was just seven years old, and after days of begging, Rokudo Mukuro had finally convinced his parents to let him continue attending school in Kokuyo after their move to Namimori.

Namimori Elementary was only a three minute walk from their new home, but Mukuro didn't know anyone there, and he really didn't want to leave behind his friends.

After all, what would Ken, Chikusa, and his precious Nagi do without him?

His parents had been hesitant, at first, at the idea of their young son walking the fifteen minutes it would take him to reach his current elementary school. But Mukuro had always been mature for his age, and since Namimori was a very quiet, safe town with an extremely low crime rate, they had eventually conceded.

And so it happened that, the day after the Rokudo family had moved into their new home, young Mukuro was in a good mood as he walked to school, relieved that he would not be leaving all his friends behind.

On his way, however, he encountered a child a year or two younger than him, with fluffy brown hair, caramel eyes, and a sweet round face.

He was going in the opposite direction, and when they met in the middle of the sidewalk, he said to Mukuro, "You're going the wrong way. School is in that direction."

Mukuro crossed his arms.

"I go to school in Kokuyo," he said, a bit annoyed that the other boy would immediately assume that he was lost.

"Oh..." he replied. And then, after a moment, "...why?"

His brows furrowing, Mukuro asked, "What do you mean, 'why'?"

The kid pointed back towards his school again.

"Nami elementary is closer."

"Well I DON'T want to GO THERE!" Mukuro yelled back at him before storming past him, his mood suddenly foul.

* * *

All through class and recess and lunch, Sawada Tsunayoshi fretted about the encounter he had had in the morning with the boy who went to school in Kokuyo.

He hadn't meant to make him mad.

Honest.

He was just confused.

And curious.

And maybe hoping to make a new friend.

He was still trying to think of a way to make things better when the answer came to him in the form of a class activity.

Their sensei asked them a question, and had them all write down their answers on sticky notes and they had a discussion afterwards.

Tsuna didn't pay much attention to the discussion though, because he had suddenly had a wonderful idea.

And so, once class was over, he approached his teacher, and asked if he could have one more sticky note.

Kneeling down so that she was on eye level with him, she asked, "And what do you need it for, Tsuna-kun?"

Tsuna looked down, suddenly shy, and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt.

"I made someone upset," he mumbled, his little mouth turned downwards into a frown. "And I need to apologize to him."

"And you need a sticky note for that?" asked the teacher, somewhat bemused.

"Yeah," replied Tsuna, and didn't elaborate.

The teacher stared at him for a few moments before finally conceding with an amused laugh.

"Here," she said, handing him the rest of the unused notes.

He stared at the thick stack, eyes wide.

He'd only needed one.

But at his teacher's urging, he took the stack, and beamed a grateful smile at her.

Taking out a pen, he wrote one word on the top sticky as neatly as he could, and clutched that sticky in his hand the entire way home, hoping that he might run into the other boy again.

He was halfway home when he and the other boy ran into each other again.

The other boy, who still seemed to be in a foul mood, seemed about to pass right on by.

But Tsuna, gathering all his courage, stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop.

The boy glared at him, as if to ask what he wanted, and without a word, Tsuna handed him the note, and quickly scampered off, not wanting to be yelled at again.

Behind him, the boy stared down at the note, perplexed.

And he couldn't help the loud, amused laugh that escaped when he saw that there was only one word written on it.

_Sorry._


	2. Through the Years

When Mukuro got home on the day he first met the boy who attended Nami Elementary, the first thing he did was to ask his parents if they had any sticky notes at home.

His parents had looked at him quizzically then, but when he had mentioned that it was so he could make a friend in Namimori, they had been only too happy to oblige, albeit still rather confused.

Taking the little yellow squares happily, he went up to his room, and neatly wrote a quick message to give to the little brunet the next time they saw each other.

Which, coincidentally, happened to be the very next day.

Mukuro could see the boy coming from all the way down the street, saw the way his shoulders stiffened when they made eye contact, as if he were worried that Mukuro would yell at him.

His arms and legs moved robotically as he took slow steps forward, his eyes trained on the ground.

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Mukuro picked up his pace.

And when he was only a few steps away from the other boy, he took out the note he had written the night before, reached out, and promptly stuck it to the other boy's forehead.

He didn't stop to see the other boy's reaction, but was amuse to hear a startled squeak from behind him.

The boy stood where he was a for a while, staring in shock at the little yellow post-it in his hand.

_I forgive you._

* * *

They didn't always see each other in the morning.

And they didn't always see each other in the afternoon.

Which was why they never were quite able to keep up a conversation.

And something about their little exchange of notes made both boys reluctant to venture into the realm of spoken communication.

They did, however, exchange notes every time they saw each other after their firs meeting.

At seven years old, after a year of exchanging notes with the weird but surprisingly funny Kokuyo boy, Tsuna's mother took him with her to the hundred yen shop to stock up on post-it notes.

Tsuna, who had until then only known of the standard yellow square post-it notes, was absolutely enthralled by the many different types of sticky notes that were sold there.

Nana, feeling indulgent upon seeing how happy her son was, ended up buying him three different packets of sticky notes.

His favorite were the pair of lucky cat notes he had gotten, with one stack of orange marked lucky cats, and another stack of black marked ones.

He decided to use them the very next day, pressing the note to his friend's left cheek, and having the favor returned with a sticky note on his own left cheek.

They had long ago stopped handing the notes over – now they stuck their notes on whichever body part they felt like that day. The forehead, nose, and cheek were favorites. But they also sometimes chose shoulders and elbows and even once, memorably, on Tsuna's right knee.

It had become somewhat of a game to them.

On this day, as Tsuna walked away reading the note he had gotten from his friend, he could hear the boy laughing when he saw the sticky note Tsuna had given him, and the message on it.

_Nyan._

* * *

Mukuro was nine the first time he saw his post-it friend walking to school with scratches on his arms and legs, and a bandaid on his cheek.

Startled and more than a little worried, he was about to ask him what had happened, but the boy smiled brightly back at him, and gave a minuscule shake of the head.

Feeling a little relieved, Mukuro bit his tongue and didn't say anything.

Maybe the boy had fallen over while riding his bike.

Shaking the worries out of his head, he took out the sticky note he had prepared, and stuck it to his friend's chin like a little purple goatee, eliciting a laugh from the younger boy.

In return, he got a sticky note on his ear.

As soon as he had turned away, the other young boy's reassuring smile fell from his face as he was remembering what his classmates had said and done to him the previous day.

When he read the note he had been given however, the corners of his lips twitched up a bit.

_You're almost as awesome as I am._

* * *

Tsuna was nine when he finally learned his friend's name. And vice versa.

It had been a particularly hard day at school, as the bullying had been increasing in the past few months and making it harder for him to pay attention to class, causing his marks to drop more than they already had.

This, in turn, made the bullying even worse, and it all continued in a vicious cycle.

He hadn't been expecting to see his Kokuyo friend that day, so it had been quite the pleasant surprise to turn the corner, and see that familiar head of blue coming towards him.

Except that today, he wasn't alone.

There was a girl with him, and she looked to be Tsuna's age.

She was smiling at her companion, and they seemed to be talking about something funny, going by the smiles on their faces.

Smiles which disappeared as soon as they saw Tsuna.

Tsuna knew that his friend worried about the new injuries he had every week, but thankfully, he never brought them up.

Tsuna didn't know what he would do if his friend found out how pathetic and useless he was, and decided to stop talking to him.

Tsuna tried to smile reassuringly to his friend, but it did nothing to allay the expression of worry on his face.

Hoping to at least distract them, Tsuna quickened his pace a bit, and when he was finally close enough, he turned and stuck the note on the girl's forehead with an impish smile.

This elicited a startled squeak from the girl, and a loud, amused guffaw from his Kokuyo friend.

The other boy was so busy laughing, he almost forgot to give Tsuna his note.

As he was passing though, the boy turned and stuck a note on Tsuna's back.

"M-Mukuro-kun," said the girl in a pleading tone, tugging at the boy's sleeve and looking at him questioningly, the note still on her forehead.

Snorting in amusement, Mukuro plucked the note off her forehead and read it.

_Your new hairstyle looks like a pineapple._

* * *

Mukuro was eleven when he and Tsunayoshi parted ways.

It had already been a week since he had seen his tuna fishie, and he was starting to worry.

Just before spring break had started, the bullying had taken a vicious turn, and Mukuro had heard from his mom that the Sawada boy from a few streets down had been excused from the last week of school due to an incident with some upperclassmen.

Berating himself for not having said anything to anyone sooner, Mukuro had been unable to do anything except worry about the boy and feel useless.

On his way to Nagi's house to celebrate the end of the year, Mukuro bumped into little Tsunayoshi, and a silver-haired-boy he had ever seen before.

The boy, who had shoulder-length hair and angry grey-green eyes, was walking rather close to Tsuna, glaring around at everybody they passed.

It was obvious from the relaxed set of Tsuna's shoulders and his happy smile that he was comfortable around this boy, and Mukuro felt himself relax a little, knowing that he had someone now to look after him.

As they got closer, both Tsuna and the stranger boy noticed Mukuro's presence.

The stranger boy turned the full force of his glare on Mukuro, as if daring him to try anything, and Mukuro smiled. Their relationship almost reminded him of his relationship with Nagi.

The stranger boy seemed to have misinterpreted the smile though, because he looked as if he were about to attack.

At the last second however, Tsuna was able to stop him, whispering something in his ear.

The boy backed down then, and his expression when he next looked at Mukuro wasn't angry anymore, but curious. And maybe even a little grateful?

When they were finally close enough to exchange notes, Tsuna stopped in front of him, forcing Mukuro to stop walking as well.

He looked down at the younger boy, more than a little confused.

Reaching out, Tsuna took one of his hands, and pressed his note into it, a sad little smile on his face.

Mukuro, not having expected to see him today, didn't have a note to give to him, but he didn't seem to mind.

Instead, he grabbed his friend by the arm and began pulling him away, waving goodbye to Mukuro as he went.

Mukuro stood rooted to his spot, staring in confusion at his friend, wondering what on Earth could have happened.

Then, the two boys turned the corner, and he could no longer see them.

He stared for a few seconds more before looking down at the note in his hand.

_I'm moving to Italy._

* * *

SkyGem: The END! Lol, just kidding. There's going to be one more chapter coming out tomorrow, and I promise it will be fluffy as hell to make up for...this. Heh. I do really love how this chapter came out though. It was so much fun and it practically wrote itself. Please do leave a review y'all, and lemme know what you thought, yeah? Ciao!

P.S. Just to clarify, each of the sections in this chapter are a year apart. Remember, Tsuna is a year younger than Mukuro.


	3. Friends

Sawada Tsunayoshi stared absently out the window he was sitting next to, watching his little island country rush by underneath, and trying to sort out how he was suppose to feel.

Was he supposed to be sad that he was leaving his parents behind?

Lonely because he was going to a completely foreign country where he barely knew anyone?

Angry that he had been forced out of the only home he had ever known by bullies?

He supposed there were a lot of thing he should have been feeling – but in the end, the only thing he could feel was relief.

Relief that he would finally be free from all the people that had been holding him back, and relief that he would be able to start over with a blank slate.

After the incident a few weeks ago with that bunch of upperclassmen, his parents had decided that, for his safety, it would be better if he went abroad to live with his grandfather for a few years.

"Tsuna? Are you alright?"

Startled out of his thoughts, Tsuna turned to his companion.

"I'm fine, Hayato," he replied, trying to smile reassuringly at him. "Just thinking."

The older boy didn't seem very convinced, but he didn't say anything else, leaving Tsuna to his thoughts.

Hayato's mother worked at Tsuna's grandfather's house.

She really was a jack of all trades – she had begun babysitting Timoteo's boys when she was just 17-years-old, and eight-year-old Enrico had just completely fallen in love with her. At 19, she had begun teaching them piano, and at 25, she had officially become head housekeeper at the Vongola HQ.

Now, at 42, she had long cemented her position as Vongola's mother, and as her son, Hayato had been the obvious choice to help Tsuna become accustomed to life in Italy.

It had been entirely his idea to go to Japan to help Tsuna pack and get ready for his move.

And truth be told, he had been so ready to hate everything about Tsuna.

But then one thing had led to another, and now, the two of them were basically joined at the hip.

He was already a large part of why Tsuna didn't feel more uncomfortable than he did about moving to Italy.

He was guaranteed to have at least one friendly face constantly around, and that was more than he'd ever had back in Namimori.

Of course, he was sad to be leaving his parents.

And Mukuro.

But he would be returning in a few years for high school.

And that thought would have to be enough for him.

* * *

At twelve-years-old, Mukuro decided that he would not attend junior high in Kokuyo.

There were a lot of factors in his decision.

The main one being that Kokuyo Chuu was a shit school.

There simply was no way around it.

Not only was it mostly populated by delinquents, the teachers were also shit at their jobs.

There was also the fact that Nami Chuu was a lot closer to Mukuro's house, and he was no longer so desperate to attend the same school as his friends.

Because in the end, they would still spend nearly all their time outside of school together, and that was more than enough.

Not that his thoughts on it mattered, because in the end, Nagi, Ken, and Chikusa all ended up attending Nami Chuu as well.

The group of friends clashed time and again with the leader of the disciplinary committee, an upperclassman in the year above them, and they ended up getting in a lot more fights than they had in Kokuyo, but Mukuro didn't ever find himself regretting his decision.

And in a quiet little corner of his mind, he hid one more reason for why he had wanted to attend Nami Chuu – the reason that had been the spark for everything else.

Sawada Tsunayoshi's parents had not moved to Italy with him.

And Mukuro hoped beyond hope that this meant that Tsuna was planning on returning to Namimori eventually.

And when he did return, maybe Mukuro would have the courage to say the one word he hadn't been able to in all the years they'd known each other.

_Hello._

* * *

At fourteen, Sawada Tsunayoshi was completely unrecognizable from the timid, uncertain boy that had arrived at the Vongola just four years prior.

He had grown startlingly under the careful attention of his best friend's mother, Lavina, who had become something of a second mother to him.

And he had learned some important lessons about self-confidence from Timoteo's four sons – his uncles who had adopted him as a younger brother.

Tsuna contemplated all of this as he, once again, checked to make sure that he had packed everything he needed.

Then, a knock on his open bedroom door.

"Tsuna? You need any help, sweetie?" asked Lavina, poking her head inside.

"Not really," admitted Tsuna with a chuckle, but held out his arms. "But I could use a hug."

Laughing sweetly, Lavina entered and wrapped him in a tight embrace.

In the years he had been in Italy, Tsuna had learned a rather surprising fact about himself – he was an extremely tactile person. He enjoyed physical affection, thrived on it. And in Italy, where people were generally more affectionate, there was nothing wrong with this.

But soon, he would be returning to Japan, where physical affection was rare even between family members.

"You'll be alright, sweetheart," assured Lavina, as if she had read his mind. "And my Hayato will be right there with you to give you all the hugs that I can't, alright?"

Tsuna chuckled in reply, and nodded.

He would miss Lavina. And his grandfather. And his uncles/brothers. And a hundred other people as well.

He almost found himself wishing that he could stay.

And he knew that he only had to say the word, and everyone would scramble to make it all possible.

But he was also looking forward to returning to Japan, to being surrounded by other Japanese people, and to hear his mother tongue once more.

He was looking forward to being back in the neighbourhood he had grown up in.

And he was looking forward to seeing his post-it friend.

* * *

It was the beginning Mukuro's last year at Nami Chuu, and he was already expecting a somewhat boring year.

The tonfa idiot, leader of the disciplinary committee, had graduated the previous year, and had moved on to torment Nami Koukou, which meant he had no one to tease and spar with.

Well, there was Ken, who was always looking to start fights with others, but Mukuro didn't think he could bring himself to pick a fight with any of his best friends.

They were all always arguing with each other of course, and calling each other names, but they never did go as far as to brawl, the way Mukuro did with Hibari.

Part of it was because they knew Nagi would hate it.

But the bigger reason was that they had all already face so much abuse from people they were supposed to trust and love, why add to that number?

So as Mukuro and his three little ducklings sat through their boring first day of school, they certainly weren't expecting anything particularly interesting to happen.

But then, when lunch had rolled around, they heard the rumours.

Rumours that everybody in school seemed to have heard about.

Dame-Tsuna was back.

And he was different.

Mukuro and Nagi were on their way to the cafeteria when they heard the first rumours.

And immediately, Nagi grabbed Mukuro's arm, looking at him with excitement in her eyes.

"Isn't that him?" she asked. "The boy you used to exchange notes with all the time when you were younger?"

But Mukuro didn't reply.

Because at just that very moment, two boys had rounded the corner up ahead of them.

One had shoulder-length silver hair and stormy grey-green eyes. The boy that had been with Tsuna on the day Mukuro had last seen him.

And the other was a tall, confident brunet with spiky brown hair and eyes of the same shade.

He carried himself differently, and seemed less worried about what others thought of him.

But it was definitely him.

And Mukuro knew he had also been recognized, because a wide grin spread across the other boy's face, and he reached into his back pocket.

Stepping forward, Mukuro spoke before the other boy could pull out his post-it notes.

"I don't want to do that any more," he told Tsuna, and soft brown eyes widened in dismay.

Before he or his friend could misunderstand though, Mukuro continued.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi-kun, why don't we be friends?"

And dumbfounded stare was his reply.

And then, a slow, relieved smile.

And finally, and enthusiastic nod of the head.

"I would love to be friends with you, Rokudo Mukuro-kun!"

* * *

_**The End**_

* * *

SkyGem: Well, that was fun! I hope you all enjoyed, and please do leave one last review letting me know what you all thought! Ciao!


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